Thursday, September 27, 2012

By Ted, I Think He's Got It

The great Theodore Dalrymple writes re free speech and those, like a certain imam in French, who have a problem with it:
Freedom of expression requires not so much the exercise of self-control in what is said as its exercise in reaction to what is said.
Exactly. Which is why an out-of-control reaction to that which is "offensive" is an exercise of brute power, and why it can be such an effective means of curtailing--with the aim, ultimately of killing--that very freedom.

1 comment:

Mal said...

"As far as Hassen Chalghoumi is concerned, then, you can have any freedom you like—so long as you don’t exercise it."
Sounds somewhat familiar...
"Any customer can have a car painted any colour that he wants so long as it is black." - Henry Ford
The difference being that this imam intends his argument to be the case forever, damn his eyes.
These people are a blight.